The morning ca in through the wrong window again, which Elizabeth had stopped minding sowhere around the second day.
Rex was awake before her, which she discovered when she turned over and found him already looking at the ceiling with the particular stillness of soone who had been awake for a while and had been letting her sleep.
She looked at him for a mont without saying anything, and he looked back at her, and the morning was quiet and unhurried and nothing needed to be said about that.
"You could have woken ," she said.
"You needed the sleep," he said.
"That’s not your decision."
"You were still asleep at seven-thirty," he said. "You’re never still asleep at seven-thirty."
Elizabeth was quiet for a mont. "The bed is more comfortable than mine," she said, which was not the complete explanation and they both knew it.
Rex turned his head toward her. She t his gaze with the specific expression she had been producing since last night, the one that was different from every other expression she had given him, where the managent was largely absent and what was underneath it was sothing considerably less complicated. She reached out and put her hand against the side of his face, just held it there, and he let her.
"I have to review the northern relay section this morning," she said.
"I know," Rex said.
"Before anything else," she said.
"Okay," he said, and he leaned toward her and kissed her, and she kissed him back with the ease of soone who had stopped thinking about whether she was going to, and for a while the northern relay section waited.
...
She remained in the guest room an hour later, seated at the small writing desk with the ledger, dressed and focused on her work when Lily knocked.
"Co in," Elizabeth said.
Lily opened the door, her expression reflecting the uncertainty of soone bearing difficult news. She glanced at Elizabeth, then surveyed the room before returning her gaze to Elizabeth.
"Alexander is downstairs," she said.
Elizabeth set down her pen.
"He ca about twenty minutes ago," Lily said. "I told him you were working, and he said he’d wait."
"And now... He’s been waiting for rather a long ti."
Elizabeth stood up, and so part of her professional posture ca back into place in the way it always did when she was transitioning into a context that required it.
"Thank you for telling , Lily," she said. "I’ll go down."
Lily looked at her with the specific expression she used when she wanted to say sothing and was deciding whether the mont was right. She decided it wasn’t and stepped back from the door, and Elizabeth went downstairs.
Alexander was in the sitting room with a cup of tea that Lily had made him, and he stood when Elizabeth ca in. He looked at her with the attention he had been giving her since before the expedition, the careful attention of soone who was reading a person they knew very well and finding sothing they couldn’t fully locate.
"You look rested," he said.
"I’ve been sleeping well," she said.
"Good." He put the tea down and crossed the room and put his arms around her, which he did the way he always did, completely and without self-consciousness, and she let him and put her arms around him in return and was aware of the specific texture of the mont.
"I missed you," he said.
"It’s only been three days," she said.
"I know how long it’s been," he said. "But still... I wanted to be honest by telling you that... I’ve missed you."
She pulled back enough to look at him. He looked tired. Not the tired of a bad night, but the tired of soone who had been thinking too much about sothing they couldn’t resolve.
"How are the classes," she said.
"Fine," he said. "The advanced theoretical group is good this term, there’s a student from the Aurelian Compact who’s been giving the others soone to compete with, which helps." He looked at her. "How’s the analysis."
"Productive," she said. "We’ve made good progress on the relay network structure."
"Rex has been helpful," Alexander said. It was not a question.
"He has," she said.
Alexander nodded in the way he nodded when he was processing sothing he had already partially decided. "I wanted to tell you in person," he said. "I’m taking a day today. The Academy has a group of new reincarnators who ca in from the Valdric pass last week, and they’ve been assigned to the orientation program, and I volunteered to run the afternoon session. I’ll be gone most of the day."
"The orientation program," Elizabeth said.
"The full day, probably," he said. "Morning setup and then the session runs until early evening." He looked at her directly. "The house will be empty. If you wanted to — I don’t know, get your things. Or just go back. I’ll be late."
"Alexander," she said.
"I’m not suggesting anything," he said. "I just thought you should know."
He picked up his tea and finished it and set the cup down. "I should go..."
"The setup takes longer than it should." He looked at her one more ti. "Will I see you tomorrow?"
"I’ll try," she said.
He tried to kiss her once, but then Elizabeth dodged. "S-Sorry... I’m not in a mood for a kiss today..."
"Oh... okay..." Alexander felt disappointed, but he still chanced to hold her face in his hand for a mont the way he did when he was saying sothing he wasn’t saying aloud, and then he let go and went to the door.
He stopped. "I’m still here," he said. "Whatever this week is... I’m still here."
Elizabeth leaned against the sitting room wall, her gaze fixed on the floor as she replied, "I know. Thank you."
After that, he left.
...
She stood in the sitting room for thirty seconds. Then she went to the study room.
Rex was at the worktable with the ledger, reviewing sothing. He looked up when she ca in.
"Alexander was here," she said.
"I know," Rex said. "I heard."
"He’s going to be gone all day," she said. "The house will be empty."
Rex looked at her.
"I want to go back," she said.
"Today. "I want to work from there," she said, maintaining eye contact. "With you."
Rex was quiet for a second. ’Oh...? What a naughty girl inviting to her house where she used to live with that fucking bum’
’Today’s sex is going to be insane because I’m going to fuck her in his room...’ Rex grinned.
"Okay," he said.
Elizabeth nodded.
"We’ll need the ledgers and the relay analysis docunt." She turned toward the door. "I’ll tell Lily."
Lily was in the kitchen, and Elizabeth found her and said, "Rex and I are going to work from my house today."
"The access to the household archive is better there, and there are so records I need to cross-reference."
Lily looked at her for a mont.
"The household archive," she said.
"Yes," Elizabeth said.
"At your house," Lily said.
"Yes," Elizabeth said.
"With Rex," Lily said.
"He’s part of the analysis team," Elizabeth said.
Lily looked at Elizabeth with the specific expression she used when receiving information that was true but incomplete, an expression that Elizabeth had been familiar with since Lily was eleven years old.
"All right," Lily said.
Diana appeared at the kitchen door, and Lily looked at her, and Diana looked at Elizabeth, and so communication passed between Diana and Lily that had no words in it.
"We’ll manage the study room materials," Diana said. "The northern relay section."
"I’ll have the cross-reference back this evening," Elizabeth said.
"Of course," Diana said.
Lily said, "Give Rex the ledger with the secondary node analysis. He’ll know which one."
"I’ll make sure he has it," Elizabeth said.
She went back toward the study room. Behind her, from the kitchen, she heard Lily say sothing in a low voice and Diana make the sound she made when sothing was equal parts inconvenient and unsurprising.
Rex was waiting in the corridor with both ledgers and the relay docunt. He looked at her when she ca back.
"Ready," he said.
"They know," Elizabeth said.
"Fuck yeah, they know," Rex said. "They’re not innocent."
"Lily is going to have questions when we get back," Elizabeth said.
"Lily always has questions," Rex said. "But it’s fine... she gets it because she’s a good girl."
They walked out together this morning.
The house was exactly as it had been when Elizabeth last visited three days ago, although it felt like much longer. The house had the specific quality of a lived-in space that had recently been vacated, with the presence of two people embedded in the ordinary arrangent of things.
Elizabeth stood in the entrance for a mont.
"The kitchen is through there," she said, which was not information Rex needed but was the kind of thing people said when they were filling space. "The study is upstairs, but the sitting room table is bigger for spreading docunts."
"Here is fine," Rex said.
She set the ledgers on the sitting room table and opened the relay analysis docunt, and for a while they actually worked because the work was real and the cross-reference was needed and Elizabeth had a professional discipline that did not entirely disappear even in circumstances that were not strictly professional.
But the house was quiet in a way the Starlight household was not. There were no footsteps on the floor above, no sound from the kitchen, no door opening in the corridor.
’Oh my god... this is it... I’m really going to do it with him... but it’s in this house.’ Elizabeth thought.
’How naughty can I be...?’
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